Tony McNulty: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, we are seeking to write to all Cabinet colleagues to ensure that there is a root-and-branch review of all aspects of the notification, across all Departments. As I understand the position at the moment, the system is in part rooted in Interpol, and beyond that in bilateral and other relationships between the UK and other countries. On a factual point, I think that what I actually said in Friday was that I could not say with confidence that every single record from every single source, under whatever treaty, was on the PNC. The review that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is carrying out will clear the matter up entirely, and will take us to a stage at which the House, collectively, can be assured about public protection.

Mark Lancaster: Shortly before Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting the probation service in Milton Keynes, and I wish to pay tribute to the work of Anna Perry her team. Is the Minister aware that in the past year alone the average officer's case load in Milton Keynes rose by 15 per cent., so that he or she dealt with 46 cases? At the same time, on the front line, there has not been a real-terms increase in budget. To be fair, that is partly because of the rapid expansion of Milton Keynes, but does the Minister accept that morale in the probation service is at an all-time low in the town?

John Reid: My hon. Friend points out an improvement that did not exist before. The assurance that I will give is that the security services will have the resources, capabilities, structures and politically driven oversight that is necessary to meet the level of threat that we now face. We now know that the first plot connected with al-Qaeda was in Birmingham in 2000, and the threat has grown apace year by year. The security services are aware of approximately 30 plots in the United Kingdom. As of September last year, 98 people were awaiting trial for terrorist offences, and we believe that a considerable number of people were involved in those plots. The subject is serious, and it is not always easy to get the balance right between putting too much information too often into the public domain, which disrupts our normal way of life, and retaining information that may be necessary for operational purposes but of which the public feel they should be availed. We try to get that balance right.

David Kidney: The neighbourhood watch scheme claims an impressive membership of 6 million households, about a quarter of our country's population. However, does the Minister agree that we can go further than that? When Staffordshire police and I make joint presentations to the public, as we did most recently last Friday at Great Haywood, about the effectiveness of neighbourhood watches in complementary action with neighbourhood policing, people see how effective they can be themselves. They queue up to sign for new neighbourhood watch schemes. Does the Minister agree that such local successes could be made nationwide if the Home Office fully backed an effective national organisation?

Kerry McCarthy: I have been working closely with my own neighbourhood watch on formulating dispersal order action plans so that we can address the underlying issues that have led to problems of antisocial behaviour in the community. What conversations will the Minister have with his counterparts at the Department for Education and Skills to ensure that local authorities act on their new statutory duty to provide new facilities so that we can address some of the underlying problems and so that young people do not hang around the streets with nowhere to go and nothing to do?.

Philip Hollobone: I agree with the Minister that the replacement of police constables is not the basis of Government policy, but may I tell him of the strong feeling of residents in Kettering that the effect of the Government's policy will be precisely that? Next year, there will be an increase in the number of police community support officers in Northamptonshire and, potentially, a reduction of 42 in the number of full-tome police officer posts.

John Healey: I will finish my point, if I may, and then I will come to the question that the hon. Gentleman asked earlier.
	Let me make it clear why three parties, and only three parties, are named in the Bill. Preparations for the implementation of the policy will not require any administrative functions to be carried out by the devolved authorities in Scotland and Wales, although as I have made clear a planning gain supplement would of course apply throughout the United Kingdom if it were introduced.
	The final decision on whether to introduce the planning gain supplement awaits the completion of the current round of consultation. The Bill is needed in advance of that decision, so that if an affirmative decision is taken later this year, the Government can start immediately to build the IT and administrative systems to support the planning gain supplement. I think that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) would accept that for such a system it is imperative that we get the IT absolutely right, and to do so HMRC and its IT partners require sufficient lead time to build and test the systems properly. By introducing the Bill now, I am seeking to avoid a situation in which a decision to progress with the planning gain supplement is taken this year, but the authority to start designing and building the necessary systems is not in place. The hon. Gentleman, who is an expert in parliamentary matters, will have recognised immediately that if we introduced the Bill later in the year, and parliamentary business fell in a particular way, the parliamentary calendar might not allow the timely enactment of the measure. Delays, of course, would reduce the time available for designing, building and testing the necessary information technology.

Nick Raynsford: I declare my interest as an honorary fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association, a non-executive director of Hometrack and chairman of the National Centre for Excellence in Housing.
	As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury made clear in introducing the Bill, this is a paving measure that allows the Government—specifically, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the Department for Communities and Local Government—to undertake preparatory work on a potential planning gain supplement. I fully understand that this is not, therefore, an occasion for a full debate on the PGS proposals, not least because they have not yet been fully defined. However, it is not adequate to nod through the Bill on the basis that we shall, if the Government decide to proceed with the PGS, have a full opportunity to debate the pros and cons of the proposals in the substantive Bill. A great deal of work will have been undertaken by then that will both contribute to the architecture of the PGS proposal and provide the momentum to take it forward. Many of us can already hear the arguments being advanced—namely, that with all the expenditure of working the scheme out having been incurred, it would be wasteful to abandon or radically revise it at that later stage.
	It is therefore right that we should attend today to exactly what a PGS scheme might achieve, how it might work and what impact it might have on development activity. We also need to consider how the PGS might affect the funding of any infrastructure, environmental and social works that are necessary to complement or mitigate development, and how that might compare with alternative mechanisms for achieving those goals.
	I am a sceptic. I have serious doubts about the wisdom of what my right hon. and hon. Friends are embarking on and even greater doubts about the likelihood of PGS delivering the benefits that they describe. That is not because I disagree with the objective; on the contrary, I wholly favour effective mechanisms for capturing a proportion of the gain that accrues from the development process for the benefit of the wider community and to finance necessary infrastructure, social provision or environmental mitigation. However, we must recognise that that is easier said than done.
	The history of post-war Britain is littered with the wrecks of abortive attempts to achieve that objective, first in the 1940s, then in the 1960s and again in the 1970s. On each occasion, the measure designed to capture for the community some of the gain accruing from the development process was repealed after experiences that could not remotely be described as successful. Against such a background, one would at the very least urge extreme caution before venturing again into such territory. I am not sure whether my right hon. and hon. Friends have been complimented by their civil servants on their bravery in introducing the measure, but they will recognise the double-edged meaning implicit in that.
	Why did the previous attempts not succeed? Essentially, there were three reasons. First, the legislation was of necessity complex, as were the processes for defining the uplift in value and hence the tax liability, which were therefore not difficult for sophisticated developers to evade. Secondly, the measures were seen as being anti-development, so developers' natural instinct was to postpone schemes until the threat of the tax had passed. That was possible because, thirdly, the Opposition of the day had pledged to repeal such measures if they got back into power, and they did so in each case.
	I am not suggesting that all those scenarios apply now; the last certainly does not. However, enough of them apply to sound alarm bells. The inherent complexity of the proposal means that evasion will not be an unattainable objective. On the contrary, most informed commentators suggest that, if PGS is implemented, a small army of consultants will emerge, advising developers and landowners on how best to minimise or avoid their liability. The view of the development industry is generally hostile to PGS, so there will be all sorts of incentives to structure schemes to minimise liability.
	There are two key issues. First, as was implied by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary in moving Second Reading, setting PGS relatively low will reduce the disincentive effect that undoubtedly applied to the earlier measures, in which a very high—indeed, penal—rate of taxation was involved. I fully understand that the Government have not reached their view on a figure, but I happily acknowledge that a PGS of, say, 20 per cent. would be less likely to deter development than a tax at 100 per cent. However, I am not sure that developers will decline to explore the scope to reduce or even eliminate their liability. There is huge scope for that, not just in the inherently complex nature of the scheme, but in the varied circumstances affecting the valuation of different sites.
	That takes me to the second key issue: the point at which the tax will bite. The PGS is predicated on the assumption that the main enhancement in value comes when planning permission is given. That is true in some cases, but in others the picture is much more complex. I leave aside all sorts of issues of hope value and other such factors and focus on two circumstances. There is sometimes a need for substantial land remediation costs before a site can be developed, or for infrastructure investment to give access to the site before the true value can be derived. Without the Jubilee line extension, the Greenwich peninsula in my constituency would not have been developable because, essentially, it was not accessible. Putting in the infrastructure of the Jubilee line was far more important to uplifting the value of the land than any grant of planning permission, irrespective of the infrastructure investment. That is where there is enormous scope for developers, with their advisers, to examine, explore and exploit opportunities to argue that it is not the granting of planning permission that explains the uplift in value, but the process of development, the enhancement of access, the remediation of the land, the opportunities to develop and the process.
	In many developments, a period of relatively discounted low-value rents is necessary to attract people to the site. The true values are achieved only several years down the line, when the site is seen to be working. However, PGS is predicated on the assumption that it bites when the planning consent is granted, not on the ultimate development value of the site. There are serious questions about whether this measure is the most effective way to capture development value and real risks that canny developers will find easy opportunities to evade liability.
	That brings me to the nub of the problem: past development taxes have generally failed because developers have seen no advantage in making the required contribution. On the contrary, they have sought to evade liability—and look set to do just the same with PGS. By contrast, section 106 contributions, despite the problems associated with them, to which I shall return in a moment, are often paid willingly by developers when they see the money being used to create a better environment for their development. That has very much been my experience in Greenwich, where my local authority raised substantial sums under section 106 from developer contributions to major local schemes such as the Greenwich peninsula or the Woolwich arsenal. The developers have been willing to agree such contributions because they can see direct benefits: better transport arrangements to serve the site, new schools, parks or health facilities that will make the development more attractive to potential investors. In short, the section 106 framework has worked for us because it has offered a win-win outcome as a result of which both parties have seen clear advantages, so there has been no incentive to try to evade the contribution.
	I recognise that that does not apply in all cases. The experience of section 106 is patchy: the mechanism has worked in some areas but not in others. Developers have been critical of many local authorities for making unrealistic demands or allowing the process to drag on, so delaying much-needed development. Equally, some critics have demonstrated that local authority enthusiasm and indeed capacity for negotiating section 106 agreements has been variable and that some authorities have failed to secure appropriate contributions
	The conclusion that I draw, as was implied by my question to my hon. Friend the Minister, is that the section 106 process can and should be improved. The sharing of good practice and the development of appropriate support and advisory services to help local authorities negotiate section 106 agreements is obviously one way in which to improve outputs. Irrespective of the Government's decision on PGS, that will be necessary, because—as my hon. Friend conceded—a continuing, albeit reduced, remit for section 106 is envisaged under the Government's proposals.
	If such improvements can be achieved—and in my view there is no reason why the poorer-performing local authorities cannot be helped to up their game to reach the level of the best—an obvious question is raised about why the Government are proposing to introduce a complex, unproven and potentially risky new task that may well end up raising contributions that are less than those that could be achieved under a properly functioning section 106 arrangement. A study undertaken by Knight Frank that was reported in  Regeneration and Renewal last September suggested exactly that scenario—a lower yield for PGS than for a properly working section 106 system.
	The traditional section 106 route is, of course, not the only option for securing developer contributions to infrastructure or social and environmental investment. There have been some very interesting developments involving tariff systems, sometimes described as "roof tax". Perhaps the best-known example is the Milton Keynes system. Under those arrangements, developers are required to pay a fixed sum per home or per square metre of commercial space to finance additional community needs such as transport, health, education, environmental improvement and social housing.
	The evidence to date suggests that developers are generally willing to enter into such agreements when they are certain of the benefits that will flow from the use of the funds that are necessary to complement and ensure the success of their development. I am aware that such an arrangement may not work everywhere. The special circumstances in Milton Keynes, which is in a defined growth area with a clear pipeline of future expansion and where land prices are generally pretty comparable throughout, make it especially suitable for such an approach. However, there is growing interest in different means of securing appropriate developer contributions within the existing legal framework. Evidence suggests that the sums being raised are growing. It seems curious that, just when there appear to be good prospects of securing the objectives that lie behind the Government's proposal by existing means, attention may be diverted by the introduction of a radical and controversial new tax.
	Given the uncertainties and risks implicit in the route on which they are embarking, I urge caution on my right hon. and hon. Friends. Whatever gloss their officials may try to put on the outcome of the earlier consultation, the reality is that the majority of informed opinion is not in favour of PGS. Nor is it a case of vested interests. The local authorities that may have the most experience of negotiating successful section 106 agreements with developers are as wary of the PGS proposals as the development industry. The Royal Town Planning Institute, of which I am proud to be an honorary fellow, described the proposals in somewhat stark terms in a press release headed "Government 'sleep-walking' into unworkable new tax".
	Although this is only a paving Bill, it begins a process that is inherently complex and risky and that could end badly. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to take stock and give careful thought to all the issues involved, as well as the considered views of the people and organisations who best know the minefield that they are approaching. If they do so, they may well conclude that the alternatives available can generate better outcomes and save them from repeating the mistakes of the past. When history has such good lessons to teach us, it is unwise—to say the least—to ignore them.

Vincent Cable: Of course, such matters depend on how such a very big system of taxation is introduced. That is why it is important that local authority-wide pilots are run and that work is done, as is happening in a couple of local authority areas. For example, there is collaboration between the right hon. Gentleman's party and mine in the vale of Oxford. How this might work is being looked into. Clearly, a lot of exploratory work needs to be done and, if the legislation had been broadened in that regard, it would have been much more attractive to me.
	What is being proposed is also a bad idea because it does not give us sufficient detail to talk about the planning gain supplement properly. I understand the Minister's difficulty in setting the rate, but the rate issue is fundamental to how we debate the matter. Its history has been partially rehearsed. It is one of Governments experimenting with very different levels of development taxation. The first experiment was the proposals of Lloyd George and Winston Churchill almost exactly 100 years ago: there was a development tax of 20 per cent. but the proposals were not introduced because of difficulties with another place on a wider subject. The Attlee Government had the confiscatory 100 per cent. There was then Wilson mark 1 and Wilson mark 2, which had rates of 40 per cent. and 80 per cent. respectively, and the Thatcher Government initially experimented with 60 per cent.
	There has, therefore, been a very wide range, and where we position ourselves on that range is crucial to the feasibility and attractiveness of the scheme. If we position ourselves at the top end, there will be many major disincentive effects on development; if we position ourselves at the bottom end, the issue arises as to whether it is worth introducing this measure, particularly as I believe that the Government are proposing to allow tax offsets against other taxes such as capital gains tax.
	I want to develop the argument in three stages. First, as the Financial Secretary encouraged us to do, I want to look at the basic principle, his approach to which I support. Secondly, I want to look at the relative merits of adapting section 106 agreements, as opposed to introducing the new tax. Finally, I want to offer some alternatives, which the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) was coy about doing.
	On the basic principle, most of us will agree that the Financial Secretary is right in saying that there is a very powerful philosophical case for taxing betterment and the windfall that accrues through no greater effort than achieving a change in planning status. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) wrote an article some time ago in which he mounted a spirited case against that principle, based on his experiences as Secretary of State for the Environment, but as he is not here it is probably unfair to drag him into the debate. I think that there is a general acceptance among those present that the principle of taxing betterment development value is right, but the problem is that there are already other ways of doing that.
	Section 106 and adaptations of it have been discussed at length, but what has not been mentioned is that capital gains tax does the same thing—it taxes windfall capital gains. The objection to relying on CGT is made in the Government's consultation paper, which says that its effect is severely undermined by the various allowances and reliefs. The logical response to that is to tighten up on the allowances and reliefs, which I would suggest doing for wider tax reasons. At present, there is not just one but two ways of taxing betterment: section 106 and CGT.
	That brings us to what is essentially a practical argument: whether section 106, as adapted—the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich suggested how that might be done—compares with the planning gain supplement concept. The arguments against section 106 have been well made and the Financial Secretary repeated some of them. In its worst expressions, it is arbitrary and inconsistent and can be long-winded. Examples from across the country—particularly from the early 1990s, when section 106 was first experimented with—show that all those arguments are true, but it has two enormous attractions: it is purely local and it is reformable.
	This situation strikes me as odd, particularly as the Minister for Housing and Planning is sitting alongside the Financial Secretary today. The former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and now the Department for Communities and Local Government, expended a lot of effort on trying to persuade local authorities that good practice could be built on. Circular 1/97 was an example, and another circular, in December 2003, also explained how good practice could be built on. It is not at all clear that the Treasury and the DCLG are entirely at one on this issue. The former ODPM was very clear that the system was capable of being improved considerably, and some of us are disappointed that that effort has not been carried through.
	I could understand why the Government want to argue that that system should be superseded if there were a simple, clear and easy way of extracting development value for the taxpayer that does not happen at the moment, but it is clear that the planning gain supplement does not do that. I do not want to speak at length on this issue, as some of the points have already been made, but there are several specific ways in which it fails. First, it fails in terms of valuation issues, as the hon. Member for Watford has already pointed out several times. In part, the problem is how it is possible in practice to crystallise a transaction in such a way that the planning gain supplement can apply in a simple way. A big development will have lots of different and related planning applications. As we know from the work of our local authorities, in practice, big and complex projects often involve a necessarily long planning process, during which there is discussion of planning conditions. It is not at all clear how a single point and a single owner can be identified for tax purposes.
	The underlying measure that the Government propose is self-assessment, which, although it is counter-intuitive, is in fact right and a good idea. Clearly, people will not underestimate the value of their own land if at some point the Government can compulsorily acquire it at the volunteered value. What the Government have never clarified is how the system of self-assessment would be backed up by the compulsory purchase powers that would be necessary to make it effective. Valuation is possible, and self-assessment is a possible mechanism, but there is much more to it than simply saying that people should declare the value of their own development.

David Curry: I cannot answer that with certainty, but I would be surprised if there were major precedents. Serious questions about the timetable arise. I think that the Minister said that the consultation period finishes at the end of February. One would normally expect such a measure to be included in a Budget, but unless the Government have already made up their mind, it will not be in the March Budget. That means that we are looking at a 2008 Budget, which means that we are looking at implementation pretty much dot on the next general election. That is another reason why I have a twinge that the project might not happen at all.
	Turning to the substance of the issue, there is consensus that we need to build more houses. I pay tribute to the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), and the shadow housing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who have recognised that. That may be unpalatable, and I accept that people do not want their neighbourhoods and communities to be, in their view, deluged. However, we must build houses where people want to live—there is no escape from that. I do not particularly like the Stalinist approach that the Deputy Prime Minister adopted in his previous incarnation, and the more that the Department tells us how much can be built in the Thames Gateway the more I wonder how long that approach will last. However, there is evidently a need for housing.
	We must acknowledge that populations need infrastructural support. My party has made much of the fact that the Government want to proceed with development, but are thwarted in that aim, because the infrastructure is not in place to transport people to work or to provide the schools, hospitals and roads that are needed for functioning communities. Funding for that infrastructure has not been forthcoming under existing financial arrangements, so there is a bar to development and one cannot imagine any foreseeable changes to the rules. The comprehensive spending review will soon be announced, and the decline in the increase of public expenditure will be the salient political reality of the remainder of this Parliament.
	Where do we look for the cash? I followed closely the speech of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). It is a pleasure to speak in the same debate as him and, once again, to our mutual embarrassment, we find ourselves in substantial agreement. The Kate Barker proposal is not new—it has been endlessly circulated and repeated—so we must ask what would make it work, whether we need a new tax, how well it would marry with other taxes, whether we could do better by building on existing mechanisms, whether the industry will have good reason to work with the proposal, and whether it would yield useful sums. The answer to all those questions is at best open and, at worst, there is a predisposition to a negative response.
	The Government have made a serious effort to mitigate the full red-bloodedness of the Barker proposals. First, section 106 will not be dethroned, although it is somewhat diminished. That is important, because we depend on section 106 for half of the affordable houses that are built in Britain. We may not be pleased about that, but if we did not have section 106 even fewer houses would be built. Anything that undermines the provision, therefore, is fatal to the cause of affordable housing, as local authorities and developers have gradually developed a great deal of expertise or case law on it. If section 106 were abolished, we would learn to love it. It is a particularly British characteristic to learn to love institutions on their demise. Section 106 is useful, but it must be developed.  [ Interruption. ] I did not catch that sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), but I do not think that we will learn to love the Government on their demise, if that is what it was about.
	Many small schemes escape the net of section 106, so we should remedy that. The Government have tried to mitigate the proposals by trying to hypothecate 70 per cent. of the yield to local authority areas. I do not wish to be Jesuitical, but a local authority area is a vague concept. Is it in the area of a local authority? Broadly speaking, my local authority is in the Yorkshire and Humberside area. I accept that some infrastructures are adjacent or close to a local authority on which they depend heavily. If a housing estate is built at the southern end of Craven, the infrastructure in Bradford is important. A significant number of Bradford pupils go to school in my constituency, as the biggest comprehensive in North Yorkshire is in south Craven. A major housing development at the Keighley end of Bradford has implications for education across the border in the North Yorkshire education area. I would therefore not want to impose hermetically sealed borders to restrict the use of the money, as that would not make sense. But it would be entirely different if the money from a development in Bentham, at the top left-hand corner of my constituency, where one can practically smell the Irish sea, found its way down to Bradford. The sense of indignation would be considerable. Much depends on a practical, common-sense view—not that it is easy to envisage developments in Bentham that are likely to yield, whichever way the money is taken, the sort of cash that would make a huge difference to Bradford.
	The Government need to be more precise. We on the Conservative Benches are rather sensitive to the notion of the region. The Minister's constituency is in the Leeds city region. In that context, I can see that people might well perceive some advantage in sharing the products of development, however they are realised, to make that work more.
	There are huge questions to be addressed. Milton Keynes gives us a limited amount of information. There is a single landlord in Milton Keynes. It is difficult to extrapolate from that example to a more generally applicable case. There is a huge difference between development on brownfield and greenfield sites—and there is a huge range of brownfield sites, not just a single example—and between a small scale project and a major project, as the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said.
	The point at which the tax takes effect is important. How differentiated will the tax be? We need some idea of the rates and the differentials, and at what point the uplift is realised. How will the Government's 30 per cent. be used? As the right hon. Gentleman said, developers will get busy minimising the tax. Finding ways of not paying the tax will not be a cottage industry—it will be a metropolitan industry. Tax avoidance is a perfectly legitimate and honourable activity. I have just received a significant bill from the Treasury, which is due on 31 January. I am actively engaged in finding out whether there are any nooks and corners of tax avoidance that I have not yet managed to identify. I regret to say that I have failed, and the cheque will be on its way at the last possible moment consistent with not being fined.
	These issues are crucial. The tax is not radical. It is a whimper, not a bang, of a tax. The problem is that the inconvenience that the whimper will cause is out of all proportion to the benefit that the tax might yield. That is the heart of the problem. The tax will not pay for Crossrail. The south-east is the region where the tax has its greatest value, as it were. Given the differential yield that it is likely to raise regionally, will the Government build into it revenue support grant formula assumptions about the level of tax yield and therefore use it as a form of redistribution, particularly as the idea of the return of the business rate seems to be a lost aspiration, as far as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe and I are concerned?
	The proposed tax is not a "with one bound Jack was free" sort of tax, and it will not be flush with money. If anyone has fantasies that it will take the strain off council tax and eventually bail us all out of the council tax dilemmas, the sooner they return to reality the sadder but wiser they will be. The tax will certainly not get the Government off the hook of the non-return of the business rate. In other words, it is thin gruel.
	Finally, there is the question of the timing. I understand that the intention was to introduce the tax in April 2008. Even that could be difficult to achieve, which moves us towards the more political dates to which the minds of those in the House are inescapably drawn. That is why a little part of me says that the tax may never come into existence.
	On the option mentioned by the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), the land value tax, I am aware that there is a significant volume of academic opinion that is strongly supportive. Both Sam Brittan and Martin Wolf of the  Financial Times have spoken in favour of it. If one wants to push people into development, one chooses that mechanism. The mechanism has been used in some cities in the United States, which provide examples of what can happen. However, the sociology of the United States is very different from the sociology of the United Kingdom, and the political disadvantages would be significant.
	I know that we always choose widows and orphans when we want to make a particularly heart-rending point, but I return to the example of a widow who has lived in the same house all her life. She may be asset rich, but she is cash poor. There is a paddock in which her grandchildren play and in which her children used to play, but it has been incorporated in the development line of the local district council. The site valuer comes along and says, "That land must be pushed into development," which is the last thing that she wants to do. I can imagine the political flak that that would generate.
	The council tax martyrs will look like rank beginners compared with the ladies who are afflicted by the site development tax. That is not what we are discussing today, but it is difficult to know what we are discussing today on the basis of the Bill. I look forward to the surrealism of the Committee stage and urge the Government at least to make this passage of fantasy as brief as possible.

Anne Main: I completely agree with that. The PGS did not receive resounding applause from the Select Committee. I remember some heated discussions among members of the Committee to ensure that there were suitable caveats to reflect what we had heard, because the proposals are so vague. As hon. Members have said, attempts to introduce a planning gain supplement have been made before, but the see-sawing of the level at which it was to be pitched was one of the things that caused them to fail.
	As far as I can see, we all accept the need for infrastructure. The Government have not assured us that there will be pump-priming of that infrastructure. If there is, who will start it in the first place? Some hon. Members have said that perhaps we will pay it back to the system, but what if the system is a private finance initiative? Will it increase the debt that might be accrued?
	Many hon. Members have mentioned the fact that the PGS is levied at the planning stage, but as those who have served on planning committees will know, proposals are often returned on an incremental basis, to be improved by the developer. We have not heard at what point that chain of accountability for the planning gain supplement will stop. That will make proposals hugely convoluted, with people arguing about the exact proportion for which they are liable, as they hand on planning consents through the system. That issue has not been ironed out by the Government's proposals.
	I am not prepared to vote for a nebulous pig in a poke, with the hope that everything will better. I do not believe that the PGS will be better. Rather, it will give massive encouragement to companies such as Landspy in my constituency, which sells parcels of green belt and greenfield sites with hope value, hoping that people will buy them and sell them on, and that eventually permission will be granted. Hon. Members on the Government Benches might put me right on this, but I defy them to show me how the paper trial could be followed back to the person who originally bought land that was sold on and on, on hope value rather than planning permission. Quite often that can mean quite a raise in gain.
	Again, change of use has not been dealt with; we have not yet ironed that one out in an area such as mine, where many small residential properties are converted to other uses. St. Albans does not have so many large building projects, but small, incremental in-filling has occurred and we do not know the figure at which the planning gain supplement will kick in—sub-divisions of properties? I do not know.
	Given all the vagaries, I am not prepared to support the Government in their hope or belief that the measures will deliver. I sat on the Select Committee and listened carefully, and heard no proof that anybody else shares the hope that the Government have put in the Bill.

Philip Dunne: I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. I am a district councillor in South Shropshire, a planning authority that has benefited considerably from effective use of section 106 agreements. I am also a farmer, although my farm on the Herefordshire-Shropshire borders is relatively unlikely to be a beneficiary of a Milton Keynes-style new town. I am pleased about that, despite what it might have meant for me financially.
	It is a novel experience for me to stand in the Chamber debating a spending Bill in connection with a Government proposal which, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), is merely the leading option of many, and is yet to be enshrined in substantive legislation. The Financial Secretary gave us a number of pointers and teasing suggestions about what might be included in a subsequent substantive Bill, but he referred several times to the conditionality of the Bill, using the "if" word. I have heard of floating ideas through the media, but now they are being floated through Parliament. We are here this evening to throw money at the issue—not inconsiderable amounts of money. In answer to a question, the Financial Secretary said that we were talking about £40 million. I note from the explanatory notes that we are actually being asked to approve expenditure of £52 million on we know not what, at this stage.
	I have had the pleasure of being involved in some pre-legislative scrutiny, which I think is an extraordinarily good idea, but asking the House for pre-legislative expenditure strikes me as a dangerous precedent. I fear for the future during my involvement in this House under the present Chancellor if, in his anticipated new role as Prime Minister, he seeks support for many other measures of this kind.
	I should like the Minister to give some idea of the running costs that we can expect for the additional branch of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, and how they would interrelate with any savings that might be found in planning departments of local authorities if a large part of the function of negotiating agreements with developers and planners were subsumed in HMRC. I share with my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) the privilege of serving on the Public Accounts Committee, and there has been remarkably little resemblance between actual and budgeted expenditure on any information technology project that we have examined since I have been a member of the PAC. I sincerely hope that if the Bill is passed, HMRC and the Treasury will be called to account and required to show the Committee what it ends up spending rather than what it planned to spend.
	Let me deal with some of the wider issues raised by the Bill. In his 2005 pre-Budget report, the Chancellor described the planning gain supplement as "a local tax for local people". We have heard very little about "localisation" in today's debate. What we have heard is that it will be the Treasury that takes control of not only the calculation of the tax—which will be taken away from local people—but the collection of it, and the distribution of a large proportion of the receipts. The tax may be paid by local people, to the extent that local developers and landowners will be paying, but it will be determined by the Treasury—the clunking centralised fist of the present Chancellor and his successors.
	The Financial Secretary gave us a glimpse of how much might be left to local people when he referred to 70 per cent. of receipts reverting to the local authority area. That raised considerable concerns on the Opposition Benches, and among the Labour Members who were brave enough to express them. I would like to know—perhaps the Minister can shed more light on this in her winding up—who will determine where that 30 per cent. that will be taken from the local community will go? Will it be the Treasury, or the regional government office? It was denied earlier that it will be the regional assembly, which is good news in a way, but who will it be, if not either of those parties?
	I remind Members that we were given one other clue: we were told that receipts would be ring-fenced within national boundaries. So the region—or, rather, the nation—of Scotland will retain its 30 per cent. I took that to mean that England will, perhaps, be lucky enough to retain its 30 per cent. but if it is intended that there will be a lower level of regional allocation, that would be useful to know. We have heard that adjacent regions might have a call on that 30 per cent. That is not the right way to proceed; the areas that will suffer from the blight of the development should receive the financial benefit.

Paul Goodman: This Second Reading debate has been good humoured, informative and expert. It is unfair to compliment two speeches in particular, but I must confess that I greatly enjoyed the speech by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), which was not exactly supportive of his Front Bench colleagues' position, but extraordinarily expert. I also appreciated the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), who likewise has tremendous expertise. The pair of them could usefully do the music halls, if people still did, as a double act—a compliment unlikely ever to be offered to the Financial Secretary and me.
	The intrinsic difficulty with today's debate is that, although it has ranged widely, its foundation has been very narrow: a Bill with only three clauses. A central difficulty has been that, although we know the general drift of the Government's position, or at least we thought that we did, there is little detail to go on. Although the Bill—this exercise in pre-legislative legislation, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) called it—is contested and controversial, the debate has demonstrated widespread agreement on several important points, as the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) pointed out. There is agreement that parts of the planning system are, as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister once put it,
	"opaque, slow, unfair, complex and reactive".
	There is agreement that developers should meet planning obligations that are necessary, relevant to planning and directly related to proposed developments in scale and kind and there is agreement that section 106 agreements are in need of reform—a point on which the right hon. Gentleman offered some ideas.
	There is essentially agreement about many of the ends, but it cannot be emphasised strongly enough that what we are voting on tonight is not an end, but a means—namely, this Bill. As we all know, it is a paving Bill, which presages a further Bill, the contents of which are still a matter for consultation—indeed, for a second round of consultation, as announced in the pre-Budget report, following the first round of consultation that was announced in the pre-Budget report of 2005 and finished last February.
	The House is familiar—arguably, increasingly familiar—with paving Bills. I note in passing that the past paving Bill that the Library note maintains is the most similar to the present paving Bill is the Tax Credits (Initial Expenditure) Bill—not a happy precedent in any way. The House is familiar with paving Bills, but it may not be so familiar with paving Bills that presage Bills that are still the subject of formal consultation. We would be grateful to know—we are rather curious on this side of House—whether the Minister will, in her reply tonight, furnish the House with some precedents.
	In short, we do not yet know what the Bill that may follow this Bill will look like. Indeed, we cannot be absolutely certain, especially after the Financial Secretary's opening speech, whether there will be a Bill at all. He referred specifically to the "potential" introduction of a Bill and saw the introduction of any planning gain supplement as a "lead option". It is all far from certain, and that fact alone should give the House considerable pause for thought before we vote tonight to permit expenditure in excess of £50 million—no small sum—on project staff in the Valuation Office Agency and, of course, the Treasury, as well as a related IT system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) said, IT projects are notoriously difficult to introduce on budget, as those of us with any knowledge of scrutinising the performance of the Child Support Agency's computer difficulties could confirm.
	Although we cannot be certain what any planning gain supplement Bill will look like, the House can be reasonably clear about the drift of the Chancellor's thinking. His favoured means of raising some additional revenue—either, on an uncharitable view of his motives, to reduce the £167 billion that he plans to borrow over the next five years or, on a more charitable view, to tackle the planning problems that the House has heard about this evening—is essentially to introduce a development land tax. It will first be centrally collected by the Treasury, which may—we are still not clear about it—take a slice of the proceeds, and it will then be recycled by the Treasury in part to the regions, which will take a slice of those proceeds. Only a part of this tax revenue will therefore be returned to the local authorities in which the developments that were taxed in the first place were sited, and even that arrangement is not written into the text of the Bill.
	I have to say on behalf of Conservative Members—I assume that it is the same for the Liberal Democrats—that we are not taking any of the Government's guarantees seriously before we see the fine print of an actual Bill. The fact is that guarantees are not written into this Bill, which raises in turn the question of how whatever money is not grabbed first by the Treasury and then by the regions will be returned to local authorities. The Select Committee on Communities and Local Government has raised the possibility of the remaining money being filtered through a "funding formula", which presumably means—if we eventually see an actual Bill—the deployment of the full panoply of top-slicing, floors, ceilings and resource equalisation criteria that have made the shift from the standard spending assessment to the formula spending share such a model of clarity and transparency during recent years.
	Now the Chancellor may believe—indeed, he evidently does—that such a centrally collected and organised land development tax, the tax that may be presaged in the Bill, should be acceptable to this House. By contrast, we believe that such a tax, and therefore the Bill, should not be acceptable to this House, for four additional reasons to the one I have already given—namely, that the Bill is a wholly insufficient preparation for a second Bill that may or may not arrive.
	First, we believe that planning system problems will not be solved by a centrally collected tax that may be top-sliced first by the Treasury and then will be top-sliced by the regions before any money finds its way back to local authorities.
	Secondly, we believe that planning system problems will not be solved by a regionally administered tax that may give more powers to unelected, unaccountable and discredited regional bodies. When my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh mentioned that possibility earlier, the Financial Secretary was quick to his feet to say that it had not been specifically mentioned in respect of the Government, but when my hon. Friend challenged him further, he did not rule out the possibility. At the moment, we simply do not know. It is just one of the elements of vagueness in the Government's proposals that leads us to oppose the Bill tonight.
	Thirdly, we believe that, since the Chancellor has not yet announced the rate at which the new tax will be set—the subject of much of this evening's debate—the House cannot be sure that it will be set high enough to raise enough revenue for infrastructure while remaining low enough not to deter developers from building affordable housing in particular. That is admittedly a difficulty with any proposal, but I say again that we are being asked to vote tonight on a Bill when we do not know the level at which the Government will set the tax.
	Fourthly, we believe—and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich made something of the point—that development land taxes have a chequered history. The Library brief cites the development charge, which was introduced in 1947 and scrapped in 1952; the betterment levy, which was introduced in 1967 and scrapped in 1970; and the development land tax itself, which was introduced in 1976 and eventually scrapped in 1986. It is striking that each of those taxes—let us not be overly distracted by the use of the word "levy" or "charge" or, in the case of the Bill, "supplement"—was introduced by a Labour Government, who were succeeded at the subsequent election by a Conservative Government. It is also striking that each of those taxes was introduced at a time when the tide of public opinion was turning against the Labour Government in question.
	It is also significant that the Chancellor is repeating the approach of his predecessors. There is the same reliance on control and command from Westminster and Whitehall and on micro-management from the Treasury and taxation from the centre. This Bill is a revealing precursor of what is to come when the Chancellor, after his long wait of more than 12 years, finally makes it to No. 10. This Bill, and any planning gain supplement, will meet the same end as its predecessors: if introduced in the form we expect, it will be overturned by the next Conservative Government. I urge the House to reject the Bill tonight.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(6),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill:
	 Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
	 Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 1st February 2007.
	3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	 Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	 Other proceedings
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.— [Tony Cunningham.]
	 Question agreed to.

Susan Kramer: First, may I reassure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that although this debate could last for three hours, I do not intend to make it last any longer than it would in other circumstances.
	I sought this debate, because I received many complaints from local residents in my constituency about the noise of helicopters overhead. To provide a flavour of those complaints, Mrs. Wisdom of Barnes said:
	"I really do find it intolerable that very few helicopters, if any, keep to their designated route."
	Mr. Keers of Barnes—hon. Members will realise that Barnes is an Achilles heel in its vulnerability to helicopter noise—said:
	"This year the noise from helicopters going to and fro from Battersea has become intolerable. To make matters worse the helicopters frequently seem to be in holding patterns over Barnes resulting in continuous and unbearable noise."
	I sympathise with the concerns of Ms Le Poer Trench, because I have had a similar experience to hers. She said:
	"This morning, I felt I was in 'Apocalypse Now' under attack. It's true noise pollution."
	In reply to our letters urging the Government to try to find a way of tackling the problem of helicopter noise, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron) told us in October 2006 that
	"where standards are concerned, further progress is dependent upon international negotiation and agreement...No significant technology advances are in prospect...Considerate flying is the key to legitimate operations not causing unacceptable disturbance".
	We were provided with contact details for the British Helicopter Advisory Board, but it appears that existing bodies do not take responsibility for the environmental impact of helicopters that fly across our communities, and certainly not for the noise that they create.
	I very much welcome the investigation into these issues that was published by the Greater London authority last October, entitled "London in a spin—a review of helicopter noise". The Minister met members of the GLA and staff who produced it to try to begin to develop a response. We are delighted that she did so, and my role tonight is to engage in a pincer movement, and keep up the pressure to secure action to deal with an increasing annoyance.
	I would love to tell the House the number of helicopter movements across London, but there is no comprehensive database that keeps count of such movements. Battersea heliport, which is the main heliport in London, has planning permission for 12,000 commercial movements a year, but police, air ambulance and military helicopter movements are not included. The GLA estimates that about 13,000 flights were made to and from Battersea heliport in 2006. There were 11,000 flights in 2003, so the trajectory is for a significant increase every year. The Civil Aviation Authority produces data on helicopter take-offs and landings, but it does not include flights into or across London from airfields around the capital such as Biggin Hill, Denham and Fairoaks.
	The pattern of flights is particularly annoying. We suspect that corporate entertainment is a major cause of aircraft movements, as there are clusters of flights during events such as Ascot and the Farnborough air show, causing disruption for several days. National Air Traffic Services does not keep data on low-level traffic over London, as it focuses on safety and does not think that it should keep track of movements. The British Helicopter Advisory Board, which the Government recommended we contact to achieve action on the problem, does not collect data at all. Each organisation seems to regard the others as data-collecting agents, and they disagree about increases in flights and who is responsible for those flights. As the GLA was forced to conclude, there is no joined-up collection or monitoring of data.
	There is a lack of standards, too. There is an attitude in government that anything that business wants in aviation it gets, regardless of the impact on the community. My constituency suffers significantly from noise from Heathrow, and my residents believe that the Government's approach to aviation is one of predict and provide, particularly in the expansion of that airport. There are genuine fears that many more helicopter movements will be permitted in future. There is no incentive to reduce helicopter noise, because there are not any regulations to encourage the use of newer, quieter helicopters. Many fleets are 30 years old and have little new technology, so they continue to disturb people.
	When we raised the issue of expansion and additional helicopter movements across the city, we were told that business needs those things. That argument is always made about anything to do with aviation but, interestingly, my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) told me that when he entered the House, there were several helipads in his constituency, including one by the Oxo tower in the middle of the river and one at Chambers Wharf. The argument was repeatedly made that it would harm business in London if those heliports were closed. Following pressure, public inquiries and general activity, they were indeed closed, and the economy of London and Southwark did not collapse. Many spurious arguments are made to justify the constant expansion of helicopter capacity which, it is claimed, is necessary for the survival of London as an economic centre.
	New proposals have been made for increased helicopter capacity in east London, perhaps at City airport, and many people believe that we have a growing helicopter culture. Regional Airports Ltd has told the GLA that it wants to be able to shuttle people to and from the London Olympics by helicopter from Biggin Hill. There is a great fear that that practice would set a precedent for regular shuttles to the City.
	Residents are disturbed by helicopter noise, but it is hard to determine that objectively, because there are not any standards by which to measure it. In testimony to the GLA, Phil Roberts of the CAA is reported to have said that data on the human response to helicopter noise are limited, so it is difficult to define an objective measure. We have managed to find methods of measuring noise from fixed-wing aircraft, and I urge the Minister to make progress on defining a standard for helicopters. It is important, however, that we do not repeat a key mistake in the measurement of fixed-wing aircraft noise, which determines average noise. No one ever hears average noise—people are disturbed by individual events. If the Minister concedes that point, and helps us to make progress on a standard for helicopter noise, I believe that we will not import the problem of averaging, which makes it almost impossible for residents to engage in a reasonable discussion about aircraft noise with the Government, BAA and other parts of the aviation industry.
	There are concerns, too, about consultation, the history of which is not a happy one. In 2004, when the CAA reduced the minimum altitude for helicopter flights over London from 1,500 ft to 1,000 ft, it conducted an extensive consultation. The only problem was that all the consultees were from the aviation industry. We must start to consider residents and to understand that they have a vested interest in a good environment for the city. That means that they must be listened to on issues such as noise.
	The designated route in the London control zone is essentially the route of the Thames, although the police and ambulances obviously have greater freedom. What enforcement is there of that route? The comments that I quoted earlier reflect a great deal of helicopter activity around Barnes, which is a holding point. It is also where there is a loop in the Thames. As a resident, I frequently see helicopters abandon the route and start to take what they think is a clever short cut, which takes them across the Wetlands centre—the largest urban waterfowl sanctuary in Europe—as well as disturbing people under the flight path.
	As I was coming into the Chamber for the debate, I was approached by various colleagues. Apparently, there have been three complaints recently from Kingston and Surbiton about helicopter noise. What helicopters have been doing in that area, disturbing residents, is beyond me. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) constantly receives reports of helicopter noise over Hampstead heath and experiences it directly over her own house, so she is conscious that that traffic is increasing and increasingly disruptive. The GLA received many reports from residents in Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs, so the problem is widespread over London. Anywhere that the Thames happens to wander, there seems to be a helicopter noise problem. The Thames is at the heart of this city, so the impact is not just in one or two isolated places.
	The International Civil Aviation Organisation recommended an altitude of 1,000 ft across Europe as a consistent measure. However, that is not at all appropriate for London. The French ignore the rule altogether for Paris, because they do not want Parisians or tourists to be disturbed. It is time that we started to find ways to ignore that standard for London. I have spoken to people in the industry, and some concern has been expressed that the reason why the UK has not resisted the 1,000 ft minimum altitude is that it wishes to protect the higher airspace for increasing numbers of fixed-wing flights. That underscores the fundamental problem with aircraft and helicopter noise of all sorts in this city.
	What practical steps can residents take in order to avoid living in a zone disturbed by helicopters? There is no way to find a noise map to see where the problem is. Even if people decide to try to avoid the problem, there is nothing that they can do. If they want to make a complaint, what do they do? Increasingly, members of the public are turning to their Members of Parliament, but it is exceedingly difficult to work out whether a specific type of complaint should go to the Department, the CAA, National Air Traffic Services or the airport operator. There is very much a "Not my job, guv" attitude towards such flights.
	Where do we go from here? I broadly support the GLA recommendations, and I am sure that the Minister is familiar with those. We need a proper review of noise and a comprehensive data collection and monitoring mechanism. Residents need a clear and simple way to complain and to get answers. We must have proper consultation procedures. I strongly support the proposal for a heliport consultative committee. There should be such a committee for Battersea, as there is at airports.
	In some ways I would go further than the GLA report. That mentions the annoyance caused by media and advertising flights. Nobody can claim that those are central to London's economy. I would like to see them banned, given the volume of other users. There are suggestions that helicopter capacity could be increased at City airport and other places. There may be better locations for a heliport than Battersea. If Battersea residents could express their opinion on that, they would no doubt think it was a delightful suggestion. If there is new capacity, it must be instead of, not in addition to, Battersea, which is the threat that we think we face.
	I hope that the Minister will give a commitment tonight that the issue will be taken seriously. Noise pollution, especially from the air, is an increasing blight over one of the finest capital cities in the world—the finest, I would argue. Residents should not have to suffer from such disturbance. Other than police, military and ambulance movements, we are dealing with a luxury service which serves a small number of people while disturbing a very significant number. I look forward to the Minister's reply.